Anabasis

Anabasis (pronounced uh-NAB-uh-sis) is a military advance. The most famous American example is General William Tecumseh Sherman's anabasis to the sea during the Civil War. The term is based on the Greek word for "inland march": "anabainein," which literally means "to go up or inland."

Ironically, the word has a secondary meaning of a massive retreat that is opposite from its primary meaning. That came from an anabasis that failed in 401 B.C., when Greeks fighting under Cyrus the Younger marched on the Persian Empire. The Greek historian Xenophon described their subsequent retreat in "Anabasis".